RIM Says 4G PlayBooks Delayed Until Fall, BB7 Devices to Miss Back To School Specials

Today RIM announced their Q1 earnings where they addressed some issues and their plans for the future. I had the chance to listen in and took a few notes and below is some of what I remember from it. Some things said were not much of a surprise to everyone is that RIM is having a tough time with their transition from their old software system to the QNX system to power what they are now calling QNX Super Phones. Both Co-CEO’s were present during the earnings call which is a bit out of normal for them and they both also answer questions during the Q&A session.

Some of the key points from the call include:

A head count reduction – most likely this will translate into lay offs and possibly restructuring within the company.The two Co CEO’s said this was not the case but they did not seem to have good words to explain the announcement.

RIM shipped an estimated 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBook’s

RIM encountered problems with the new OS7 during the certification process which caused delays

BlackBerry 7 and device launch will see a better world wide launch consitency

4G PlayBook is delayed until fall

BB7 devices will miss back to school specials

QNX is the future platform for RIM- meaning the OS for the next generation of high end devices is on the transition stage and they are making progress on it which is being developed based on the same platform of the PlayBook tablet OS.

The company has grown fast and the job of Co-CEO’s has increased in demand especially managing the acquisitions.

RIM’s guidance for the future looks a bit cloudy, with expected earnings of $4.2 – $4.8 billion in revenues, with earnings per share dropping to $0.75 – $1.05 . If you like to listen to the call yourself there will be a replay of the conference call will also be available at approximately 7 pm by dialing (+1)416-640-1917 and entering passcode 4445546#. This replay will be available until midnight ET June 30, 2011.

Of course they are a little behind. We all know the issues they’ve had between os7 and 6.1. Plus they haven’t put a device out in a while. When the touch curve touch series (sorry storm lovers) with no surepress and the bold touch, their sales will go up. They need to get the sd card backups and wifi hotspots in their devices and they’ll be up there again. I still love my Bold 9650 and my Playbook and wouldnt trade them. I have an iPad amd iTouch and Droid. So I can be honest. Each has their own greatness

These numbers explain why RIM is not getting any respect from its Vendors (Telco’s). Remember O2 decided not to sell the Playbook. If they still had good numbers this would not be the case. Anyway still don’t understand why it’s taking so long to get OS7 out the door with almost 20k employees! Looking at OS6 vs. OS7 and it’s not really a big deal, and if it was that much work for so little, maybe they should have gone the QNX lite, and VM the whole thing. Just run QNX as the hypervisor for the OS6 platform. RIM must have some really bad project managers that are allowing this much slippage and project creep. I really hope they reduce the manager head count and not the real workers. Hopefully that’s what they mean by streamlining these, less management and process with more end target achievements. Come-on, at lease get a curve out with older OS updated to 6.1 and leave OS7 for later.

From all these delays on the smartphone and the 4G PB their might be some good to come from all of this. Which i think will give RIM a edge even tho there are rumors for the iphone 5 to be coming out this September.

The headcount reduction may not be a bad thing for RIM. If you think about it, with the acquisition of the QNX team and the apparent end of life of the old BBOS past version 7, the original crew behind the legacy OS may now be redundant. This is true for any situation where you have major acquisition of R&D talent, and RIM has been acquiring quite a few companies lately. Some consolidation is normal.